Design Seeds is my new favourite place to look at colourways.
Pale Pinks from Design Seeds
Poppies from Design Seeds
Aged Tones from Design Seeds
Door Hues from Design Seeds
Feathered Hues from Design Seeds
Dusk Bloom from Design Seeds
To recap: my client had this inspirational photo.
Using the Fibonacci Sequence for striping and colour changes,
I’ve been winding the warp for the Peacock Baby Wrap:
Here’s the warping board straight on:
To conserve space in my studio (which is also my bedroom), I installed the warping board over the light switches. (This actually makes them easier to find in the dark). The thing behind the warping board is a child’s counting toy from Ikea that used to belong to Farmertot. It’s got 100 beads in sets of 10, and it perfect to help keep track of the number of threads as I’m winding.
There’s a sticky note above the warping board to the left. Here’s a detail of it:
This is the number of each thread of each colour (Brown, Green, Teal, Blue, Purple).
If it’s not evident on the sticky note, there is more green and blue in the sequencing, because they are two of the three colours that are striped into and back out from. (The teal, in the middle, is brighter, and I needed to reduce the number of threads to fit the width of the cloth, so it has fewer threads, but because its value is lighter than the other colours, I think it was the perfect place for a reduction.
This one is two greens in the warp in a Fibonacci sequence . . . it’s for a friend who is a geeky geek. Here it is, ready to be cut off the loom (ooh! look at all that cloth!): 
My new client has this inspiration photo: And likes this kind of colour blending: 
It’s going to be so pretty! Some colour progression ideas (please ignore the colours used): 
A (Fibonacci Sequence) and B (Scattered Sequence) 
A (Fibonacci Sequence) and C (Plus One, Minus One Sequence) 
C (Plus One, Minus One Sequence) and B (Scattered Sequence)
WIF of partial Fibonacci Sequence
Gonzaga Tartan, 2014
Double Weave Magnetic Board Cloth, 2011
Angry Spinner Felted Lettering (for my booth’s banner) 2012
Summer and Winter Lettering, 2013
Weft-clasped Rose Path Curtain Detail, 2012
Brushed Mohair Throws, 2012
Rosepath Carrot Bag, 2011
ROYGBIV Kitchen Sink Scarf, 2010
I showed up in the Spokesman Review weaving on the quad at the Gonzaga Tartan Legacy Day. It was a blast, and the cloth came out beautifully.
For curious weavers, I used a sett of 12 epi using sport weight Brown Sheep Naturespun yarn in Natural, Irish Shamrock, Nordic Blue, and Scarlet, sourced locally at Paradise Fibers.
I will have it at the 13 May meeting of the Spokane Handweavers’ Guild in Spokane Valley, if you’d like to see the finished product. I fulled it further than I intended, which makes me a wee bit sad, but it would make a GORGEOUS blanket at that weight.
As we learned at the last guild meeting, blue DOES in fact felt at a different rate than the other colours, so I also had puckering of the white squares, which I worked out with a makeshift mangle (large rolling pin) and lots of elbow grease.
My spinning client send me musk ox (so very soft!) and silk (for strength) to spin.
Some of it had been spun before, and she wondered if I could take it back apart.
It was loosely spun, and the musk ox is short, so I started by teasing the yarn into short strips.
I held the strips and charged the carders with it.
Looking good. So I started carding back and forth.
The fibers opened up nicely and the blending went really well: here’s the resulting rolag:
After just an hour, I got the yarn back to fibers, and the rest of it processed. On to the spinning!
Unfortunately, the spinning and un-spinning resulted in some of the musk ox felting on itself. This happens with really fine fibers — too much handling results in felting. It’s basically the same thing that happens when a fabric pills. Here’s one of the rolags that shows that:
And a close up:
Fortunately, I noticed this early, and I separated out the rolags with the damage from the ones that weren’t. Here’s what happens in the spinning when you encounter the wee nubbies:
(Click to enlarge and get a good view of the nub). Yarn with these nubbies intentionally placed can be gorgeous and interesting — they add a tweedy texture to the yarn and make beautiful cloth. However, since so much of the musk ox was NOT damaged in this way, I wanted to preserve the smooth nature of the bulk of the yarn, so I spun two separate skeins: one smooth and a smaller nubby one.
My yarns for the brown bag project at the Cross Borders Weavers Guild in Colville. We were to bring a brown bag with yarn, roving, beads, etc. to give to another member, who will create an object and return it at the November meeting. I wonder what I’ll get back?
The Kress Gallery Show (3rd floor of River Park Square in Spokane) is open until the 31st of January. Here’s some highlights! Click on the individual pictures to see them larger.
Some of my cloth begins as grass in my yard.
(I don’t weave grass, though there are folks who do).
The grass is is consumed by my alpacas or goats.
They, in turn, grow out fiber which I shear, clean, comb, dye, spin, ply, and then weave into cloth.
This is slow cloth, in the same way that growing, harvesting, and cooking one’s own food is slow food.
There’s something very satisfying about knowing that you can create cloth – one of the fundamentals of survival – on your own.
Brobdingnagian Jewelry
Like most artists, I’ve dabbled in a lot of different media, from paint to clay to beading to fiber. And that dabbling tends to lead to fusion.
The Brobdingnagian Jewelry is one such fusion. The wire is nine gauge, the beads are solid wool. As you might imagine, assembly took hours with an icepick, sore fingers, and several large pliars.
The Brobdingnagian lover didn’t go to Jared: he went to Jen.
Weaving Yarn and Yarns
This piece was commissioned for First Night 2014, and is the result of community participation. The piece was woven entirely over the course of First Night, with ribbon contributions from revelers. While I planned the rough dimensions and colour scheme before the event, the cloth came together as the night progressed. You can see the waves of people who came by in density of the ribbons. I tried to group families and friends together, but sometimes colour and balance won out. The early evening is to your right, the new year to your left.
About the Artist:
Jen the Angry Spinner lives in the Foothills of Mount Spokane, in beautiful Newman Lake with Farmerteen, the Renaissance Guy, her parents, a few alpacas, and an ever changing number of barn cats.
When she’s not busy fighting fires, homeschooling, or attending Spokane Handweavers’ Guild meetings, she can be found at her loom, creating cloth and half-watching Law & Order.
She can be reached at 509.280.4785 or jen@angryspinner.com
